


Is to go to her.

by MissAtomicBomb77



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAtomicBomb77/pseuds/MissAtomicBomb77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie is visited by his angel. Merry Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is to go to her.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is… I don’t even know. It was hard and strange and weird to write.

Charlie pushes his way into his office, one last thing in his hand. It’s been a dreadfully long week and he’s really ready to leave. However, once again, there’s just more thing. So he almost doesn’t notice the woman sitting in his office chair until he’s upon her. “Can I help you?” He asks, his brow creasing suddenly. He’d be a liar if he said that strange people waiting for him in his office was unusual.

Yet she’s highly unusual, nothing more than black leggings and a bulky white sweater. She’s in his chair but lying across it, dark blonde hair in waves over one arm, her legs and bare feet dangling over the other. “You should imagine that statement coming from me.” This is her response to his query.

His anger is inexplicably quick to build. “Who are you?”

“I’m everyone and no one Charlie. I’m here by the grace of God.”

“Get out of my chair.”

She complies, quickly, quietly. “I’m here for the duration. I’m here until you decide it’s time for you to let go.”

Now he’s just irritated, throwing the folder that was in his hand on the desk. “I have no idea who you are and what you are playing at, but you have exactly one minute to get out.”

“I’m not leaving until you want to let go and we have miles to travel before we get to that point. They’re proud of you, by the way.”

Charlie is looking at this woman as if she’s certifiable and he asks her carefully, “Who exactly do you know that is proud of me?”

She is certifiable, but she has cause to be so. “Everyone where I come from is including your father, your mother, your college professors, and a number of former Marines, oh, your first boss in the journalism game and even Leona’s father.”

The fine hairs on his arms begin to stand on end. “Okay, who are you?”

She cups a hand to her mouth as if she’s sharing a secret. “I’m an angel Charlie, your angel.”

“I’m going to call security now and be sure that you’re going to be taken care of. Any help that you need young lady.” He reaches for the phone on his desk to make the call.

“I’m over nine hundred years old, don’t young lady me!”

Then, he can’t move. His hand is outstretched in front of him, but he can’t seem to will it to move.

“I really don’t think you understand Charlie.” This angel, she’s feline like in her movements and he’s reminded of someone from a long time ago in that moment. She knows this and she responds to his unspoken thought. “We’ll get to her in a moment. We have to work our way back to her. You should sit. You may as well be physically comfortable, because you aren’t going to be emotionally. Relax and you’ll be able to move again.”

There’s a real part of him that thinks she’s crazy, that this poor woman is out of her mind. He tries her advice and as he embraces the thought that she may be something more than she seems, his ability to move slowly returns to him.

She leads him to his desk chair and as he settles in, she turns around and is holding a tumbler drink at the ready. She leans over him and gently places the drink in his hand. “It’s your George Bailey moment Charlie. You may not think it’s a wonderful life,” she smiles wickedly at her pun, “but it’s yours and without it absolutely none of this would exist.”

1957:

He knew his father would be angry and was prepared for his wrath. It was done, there was nothing anyone could do about it, and he was shipping out the day after Christmas to become a Marine. Charlie did his very best not to buckle underneath the slap that his father delivered. He knows that his younger brother Kenneth, Kenny, saw the entire exchange from the doorway. Charlie had a few guesses what brought the anger to the surface, the Korean War was only five years removed. Many, many friends had been lost to their family, but they were too young, his father’s sons had been spared. Yet, the minute he turned seventeen, he ran and enlisted. He had to get the hell out of Ohio, he knew that if he stayed, he’d become a small town lawyer for a bunch of farmers and local shopkeepers. He had no desire to do any of that. There was a world out there, a great big world that he wanted to see. He had his mother to thank for that and her love of books.

1967:

His father had nothing to say to him. Every word out of his mouth was about Ken and that he was now the Assistant District Attorney. Not a word about anything Charlie had done. His mother, she was glad that he was home and was offering up the boy’s old room until he had found a job and a place in town. She was trying to float the idea of the community college, a class here or there. Charlie will find a job, she’s sure of it. He was a hard worker and his brother was a celebrated member of the community. There’s opportunity for Charlie Skinner. So when he told her quietly while drying the dishes she had washed that he was going back to cover the military in Vietnam, he thought she would be proud; he was going to write. She dropped her grandmother’s serving platter, slapped his face like her husband before her and sobbed over the broken pieces of china.

1987:

No one knew asked if they were related. There were people who knew at the time, but none of the staff that was running around him knew the direct relation. The daughter of a Columbus socialite was photographed coming out Ken’s condo while his wife and children were in Orlando. Charlie could have quashed the story. He could have at least called Ken first and asked what was going on before it went to air. It just looked horrible and it could have been completely innocent. Yet Ken had been foolish enough to brag to the press the day before that his personal life was above reproach and to just investigate – that was what made this a story. Charlie’s team never reported that it was an affair; the words never left their lips. The public drew that conclusion. A conclusion that was proven to be wrong later, but it was enough. Ken would never become the governor of Ohio. 

“They were hurt,” she said softly, from her position perched on his desk. “They loved you Charlie, they wanted children for so long, married for almost ten years and childless before you were born and then your brother four years later. You made her life complete and they just didn’t want to lose you.”

He looks away from her now, rolling the now empty tumbler between his hands as the haphazardly stacked books on his bookshelf were suddenly interesting.

“She kept every clipping. You didn’t know because the moment she died, Ken destroyed them all.”

Charlie swallows the lump in his throat. “He was angry.”

“That was on him and you need to remember that.”

Charlie nods sadly.

1970:

He fell in love with her fifteen minutes after he met her. He didn’t know it at the time but whenever he thinks about that day he knows exactly when it happened. Her lips tightened into a thin line, her face determined as she swung her arm back and punched a man square in the face. It was that moment. She always had an expressive face and in time, she learned to control it but on that day and in that moment, the range of emotion she showed. Her satisfaction of landing the punch on the intended target then changed to surprise and then a grimace of pain. She was lucky she didn’t break every finger in her hand. It was a thing of beauty, the raw emotions of Leona. When he missed her the most, when he thought she no longer walked the earth, this was the moment his mind would retreat to. She was spitfire and she wouldn’t give up for anything.

1980:

Charlie could tell that Reese loved his mother. Charlie almost wished that he was a six year old boy again. Six year olds make no effort to hide their love or adoration of people. The boy’s face was bright and round and his eyes shown for his mother. Charlie half wonders if that’s what his face looked like all those years ago when he saw Leona. There must have been a time, he thinks, when he never had to hide his feelings. He couldn’t even begin to tell you when that might have been. He was older now and many would argue wiser. He just felt more foolish with age, but he hid it well. She hid it well. It was a handshake, there may have been a photograph of that day, some idiot award that was now lost somewhere in his office, he doesn’t even know. He can just remember being ignored by them both; mother and son only had eyes for each other. That unconditional love parents and their children have.

1990:

It wasn’t until the month before he found out that they were both nominated for the Emmy. He wasn’t even going to go. They were both just producers, it wasn’t as if they did the real work. They were both regulated to desks and were in charge of people and were more editors at large rather than digging for facts, drawing conclusions, writing the story. Which is what he believed, but if you asked anyone that worked for them, all of them would have said that Leona Lansing and Charlie Skinner were the drive behind their respective organizations. A tenacity that couldn’t be matched that made sure the story, that the facts were told. She won that night and he was glad, mostly for her, but glad he didn’t have to give a speech, they would have been only words, not his feelings. Charlie had seen her report and she deserved the award more than he did.

“You can’t change the things that have happened; they are part the fabric of who you are. They are also part of the fabric of who she became, who she is.”

“She would have been better off without me.” He says, looking at her, and then looking at his hands.

“If she hadn’t met you, she never would have been caught by the Viet Cong, sure, but she never would have gained the confidence to create this.” She waves her hand in the air. “Even if she did meet you and you sent her home the minute she admitted to you who she was, this still would have never come to pass. Do you want to know what would have happened to her?”

“She would have been safe.” He retorts.

“No, no Charlie. Not even close. She comes home, rejected and dejected so she and fiancé fall into the wrong crowds. She would have been dead by 1973, overdosed, naked hands tied above her head in bed. Upon her scandalous death, her father sells his company off. None of this exists.”

Charlie looks at this woman, this crazy woman. “No.”

“Oh yes, Charlie, yes. The paths of all the people that work here, all four hundred and fifty thousand of them, altered, some severely, some less so, but no one is ever quite the same. No one ever reaches what it is that needs to be reached, none of them every truly excel. It’s all because of you.”

“Why are you telling me this?” He asks her, his voice raw.

“Because the phone is about to ring and your response when you answer the phone, the first impulse you have is the one that you need to follow. You’re not going to want to because it’s something you’ve buried for a long time, but I need you to listen to it. If you don’t, everything around you, it’s going to crumble and well, we can’t have that.”

The phone starts to ring and she’s nowhere to be seen, but he can hear her voice in his head. You know what they say about when bells ring, angels get their wings.

He looks at the Caller ID.

Leona Lansing, Home.

On the third ring, the phone is to his ear.

She says his name and her voice, it’s a quiver.

Charlie’s first impulse, his response…


End file.
